Here You Are By My Side
by PLLCanada
Summary: Set after 3x14, so everything up until then may be addressed if it pertains to Quinn and/or Rachel. Quinn wakes up in the hospital and doesn't know anything about why. All she does know is that she supposedly has a devoted friend. M for future chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

**AN: Alright, so I think I can do this. I think I can start a story and actually follow through with it and if I don't and people actually like it, just send me a message or comment telling me to stop being so lazy. I won't mind. It's encouraged, actually. Oh, and the title is from the song Open Arms, which in my opinion is Journey's best song. Just saying. Also, I have the basic idea of what I want to happen in this story, but if you have any ideas you'd like to see happen I'm always open, with open arms, *ba dum tss* and following chapters will be longer because this is really just the prologue, if you will. Enjoy and feel free to review, positive or negative, it doesn't matter as long as it is somewhat constructive. Almost forgot; I don't have a beta, so any and all mistakes are all on me. There, done.**

An incessant beeping noise is all she hears as she is awoken from a slumber of what feels like days. Her mouth is dry, throat raw and she can't recall ever having a headache as excruciating as the one she is currently experiencing. Her eyes take a moment to open and she wants nothing more than to run the dry, itchy feeling away from them with her hand, but something's restricting her.

The beeping continues from the machines surrounding her as her vision clears and she takes in her surroundings. The room is relatively dark with only one light illuminating a portion of the room, the ceiling has a barely visible brown ring from what is most likely previous water damage, she can feel cold rubbery plastic along her right arm and she wiggles a couple of her toes on her right foot only to feel a dry wool blanket and a stinging pain shoot down her leg, but other than that she can't see or feel anything because she can't move.

Panic sets in and she needs to know what happened, why she's here, why everything hurts, "Mom?" It comes out as a throaty moan, not her usual, feminine voice. "Mom?" She tries again as a few tears begin to fall down her cheeks. "What's going on?" She asks the near silence -excluding the machines around her- of the room. "Somebody?"

She can hear some rustling to her left as a shadow moves across the wall. "Shh," The person begins. It's her mother. "It's okay honey, calm down," The older woman's cool hand reaches out for Quinn's forehead and gently slides her sweaty bangs aside. "You're okay now. Just try to stay still," Her voice hides no emotion as she tries to settle her daughter down. "I'll be back in one second, okay?" Her daughter says nothing, just swallows soundly and looks at her mother's tired face.

"Nurse, she just woke up." Quinn can hear her mother say from the hallway just outside the room. "Okay, I'll go get the attending and we'll be right in." The woman, whom she presumes to be the nurse her mother was talking to replies immediately.

The shadow returns to the room as her mother goes back to Quinn's bedside, "Do you want anything? Need anything?" Her voice is so soft and genuine; Quinn hasn't heard that tone in years.

"Water." Quinn all but whispers before her mother turns out of her daughter's vision and returns immediately with a small cup and straw for her to drink from. "Just have a little bit, otherwise you might upset your stomach because you haven't properly had anything for nearly a week." _A week? What happened a week ago? _She thinks as she gently sucks on the straw that's just been placed directly in front of her lips. "What happened?" The question comes out as soon as the straw leaves her mouth and she'd swallowed the relatively cool water.

"Don't worry, we'll get to that in a bit. Let's just make sure you're okay first." Her mother silences her as she places the cup back on the table next to her.

More shadows appear in the room before the lights slowly rise to make them all disappear. "Hey, Quinn." A man's voice, one of the former shadows, begins as footsteps approach her bed. "I'm doctor Feldman and this is Jamie, your nurse." Quinn looks back and forth between the two of them; his hair is short and red, he wears glasses, average height and weight, her brown hair is pulled back into a ponytail and she's a bit shorter than him. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired." She answers as she looks past his glasses into his blue eyes.

"That's perfectly normal. Do you feel any pain or discomfort?" He looks from her to what she assumes is her chart and back again. "Maybe some numbness?" He glances over the machines surrounding her and her bed as nurse Jamie moves over to the right side of her bed and starts adjusting things that aren't quite in Quinn's restricted field of vision.

"My head and leg hurt and I can't move around." She tries to look over to her right again, but winces at the pain it causes to her neck.

"The pain isn't uncommon for your injuries, but I'll get Jamie to get you something for it," He looks up at the nurse across the bed and Quinn can hear her walk out of the room. "And as far as moving, try not to too much." He smiles to try and diffuse some of the worry the blonde is guaranteed to be feeling. "We had to do surgery on your right leg to repair a tibial plateau fracture, which is just below your knee, so your leg may still be a bit numb, but it's also in a full bandage, so that would explain that limited movement. You also have a brace around your neck, which I'm sure you've already noticed and that's there because you encountered some pretty bad whiplash in the accident."

_Surgery, fracture, whiplash, accident. _Quinn's mind went into overdrive as her vision blurred momentarily around her. _What happened? _She kept asking herself, but every time came up blank, she couldn't remember a thing. "Quinn, you alright?" He looked down over her and into her eyes. "Can you squeeze my finger for me please?" The doctor asks as he gently flips over her left hand and places his right index into it. "Just squeeze as hard as you can." She tries with any strength she can find inside her and manages to just barely tense her hand around his finger. "No worries," He smiles down at her dejected face. "You can't expect your strength to be back a one hundred percent especially considering you've literally just woken up after almost a week." He takes back his finger and begins jotting down notes into the clipboard that remained in his left hand. "I'll check back again when you wake up later on in the day and we'll see where you are then. Get some more rest, drink some fluids when you're awake and try not to do too much and that includes thinking. Just let your body do its thing and it'll recover a lot faster." He puts his pen back into the chest pocket of his white jacket. "Sound good?"

"Yeah." Quinn turns her hand back over and looks back up to her doctor's face and tries to see if there is something he isn't saying. _He must be a great actor because if there is something he's not saying, it doesn't show. _Quinn thinks to herself as doctor Feldman escorts himself and Quinn's mother out of the room and nurse Jamie walks back in.

"Do you have a lot of pain, a little bit? How much on a scale of one to ten - ten being unbearable?" Jamie asks as she begins to move around some of the tubes that Quinn just realized were attached to her right arm.

Quinn takes in the sight of the tubes and tape then looks back up to the nurse, "About a six." She states calmly and clears her throat gently as to not move her neck too much.

The nurse brings up a bag of a clear, water-like substance and attaches it to a white machine with blue buttons on it and brings the tube, which is already in Quinn's arm up to the machine and waits a few seconds. "Alright, so I just gave you some morphine, a relatively small dose because you don't appear to be in _too_ much pain at the moment, but if you start to feel pain anywhere, just hit this little button," She points down to Quinn's side where a white trigger lays, "or get your mom to do it if that be easier. Just make sure you only use it when you have a bad pain, like a throbbing pain in your leg or maybe your neck or shoulder area starts to get really sore and if you have any questions or concerns, just click the button on your side table to your left and I'll be here as soon as possible." The brunette smiles at Quinn sincerely,_ people sure do smile a lot here,_ she thinks as she responds with her understanding.

The nurse starts walking back over to the door to leave before turning around to address Quinn again, "If you start to get uncomfortable in your position, there are buttons on the left side of the bed frame that can adjust some angles."

"Thanks." The blonde replies, moving her hand down to glide over and feel the slight bumps from the buttons.

"You sure do have some great friends by the way. We nearly had to escort one of them out because she refused to leave." She adds as an after thought and chuckles at the memory, before looking out into the hallway and back at Quinn. "Your mom's just finishing up with doctor Feldman, so she'll be back in a minute or two and I'll be back at least once every hour on rounds, so I'll see you then. Get some rest and you'll be back to the normal high school life before you know it." With that, the nurse was gone and Quinn was left alone for a few moments where she quickly fell asleep having taken the doctor's orders of not thinking too much. Instead, she just made a mental note to ask her mom what happened and who wants to see her so badly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

**AN: Wow. Just, wow. I can't believe the feedback I've had from this after only one -relatively short- chapter. I don't think I've ever received that many e-mails in the span of two-or-so days notifying me of alerts, favourites and reviews. So thank you all so, so much and hopefully this chapter does not disappoint and a fun fact about the writing of this chapter; I wrote a good chunk of it on a train to Toronto to go to the auto show with my brother right next to me to my left and being the paranoid freak I am, I put my macbook screen on the lowest light level possible, which just so happens to be pitch black so that he couldn't see what I was doing. Any who, enjoy!**

When she wakes up a few hours later her mother has moved her chair over towards her daughter's bed so that she is within her limited sightlines and is knitting what appears to be either a nearly finished scarf or the beginnings of a blanket. Above her mom's head she sees a clock that she hadn't noticed the last time she was awake, which reads 11:23. "What day is it?" Quinn's groggy voice asks as her left hand slides down to the adjustment buttons, which nurse Jamie had mentioned the night before and sits herself up gently so that she can turn at her waist to fully take in her surroundings for the first time.

Judy looks up from her knitting to look at her daughter and the slightly pained expression she has on her face. "Good morning sunshine," _Wow, she hasn't called me that in years_, Quinn thinks to herself. "It's Saturday. You okay? Do you need anything? I can go get the nurse." The older woman stands up immediately and drops her scarf-blanket onto the seat of her chair.

"Relax mom, I'm okay. I just haven't sat up in what seems like forever." Quinn calms her and the slightly embarrassed woman returns to her seat and places her knitting back into her lap, forgotten for the time being. "Why am I here?" Quinn prods carefully, not sure how she's supposed to ask why she's in a hospital with a neck brace and what is essentially a broken leg. "Obviously something happened, but _what_?" Their eyes meet for a brief moment until Judy looks down towards her lap and exhales fully. Despite the fact that doctor Feldman said that some patients experience what could only be described as triggering memories after a traumatic event such as a car crash, everyone was in agreement that they'd have to tell her.

"How about I go get you something to eat and then when I get back we'll talk?" Judy proposes as she puts her knitting on the bedside table and gathers her sweater.

"Sounds good." Quinn smiles slightly at the idea of her and her mother having a real conversation for the first time since she'd moved back in after having Beth. "Can you help me into the bathroom first?" Her eyebrows furrow from embarrassment as she continues to look at her mother.

"I would, I really would, but I'm afraid of hurting you some how. So can I just get the nurse to come in and help you with that?" Judy's eyebrows exactly reflected Quinn's, to the point that it was obvious who the younger inherited the trait from.

"Yeah, of course. Sure. No, I get it." Quinn replied still clearly awkward about the situation. "I've been here for a week, right?" The blonde asked, her mother nodded in agreement. "So how did I, uh, _go_?" Her eyes quickly avoided her mothers. Who knew a simple conversation about 'number one' could be so awkward and embarrassing.

"Oh, you had a catheter." The older of the two responds easily, waving off the question as if someone had just asked her the time. "They took it out yesterday afternoon once they were sure that you'd wake up at some point during the day."

"A catheter?" Quinn manages to stutter out, "Ew." Both women laugh at that simple statement, Quinn of course making sure not to move around or laugh too hard because of her neck.

Judy pats her daughter's left hand comfortingly, "Since the doctor doesn't want you to jump back in to solid food too quickly, your lunch choices are chicken noodle or tomato soup. Which would you like?" Judy asks, grabbing her purse from next to her scarf-blanket.

"Chicken noodle sounds good, thanks." She responds after a moment of consideration.

"Alright." Judy begins to walk away, turning around before the door to leave to fetch lunch, "I'll be back in ten minutes or so and I'll get the nurse to come a help you to the washroom." Judy walks out of the room.

Thirty minutes later Quinn was partially laying, partially sitting down in her bed with the back tilted up to a comfortable angle, with Judy to her left in her own seat, both eating their lunches.

Once Quinn took her last spoonful of the cafeteria chicken noodle soup she wasted no time asking one of the questions that had been on her mind since she woke up. "So what happened?" Judy, who had only eaten half of her sandwich, wrapped up the remaining food in the saran wrap it came in and took a sip of her water to get down the bit that was still in her mouth. "I got the part about an accident, but what _kind_ of accident?"

The older blonde swallowed deeply, "A car accident." She replied, not adding any further details for a few seconds until her daughter spoke up again.

"Okay, a car accident." Quinn says slowly, trying to get the woman in front of her to say more.

"Yes, a car accident. You were driving in your buggy and a large truck T-boned you." Quinn haphazardly nodded her understanding, barely managing to move her head more than an inch back and forth due to her brace. She saw something in her mother's eyes, something she wasn't telling her, something important.

"Was anyone else hurt?" This was the only thing that came to her mind about what her mom could be hiding. "What happened to the person in the truck?"

"The other driver was the only one other than you to have an injuries and his were just some bruising to his chest and abdomen from his airbag." Judy assured her, but that look remained in her eyes.

The younger blonde couldn't take it anymore. "What aren't you telling me?" She prodded, needing to know what her mother was hiding.

"You were on your phone." Quinn's eyes enlarged to a size that said more than any words could. "Texting." Judy added as an afterthought.

Quinn, forgetting about how sore her neck is, began shaking her head side to side, only stopping once she felt a sting on the right side of her collarbone. Wincing from the pain, she realized that she hadn't said anything to her mom. "No, I wouldn't. I would never." She wanted so badly to remember what happened, but her mind was still a blank from that day a week ago.

"Apparently you would and you did. The other driver in the accident said he saw you looking at it when he was trying to brake as fast as he could." Quinn's expression was one of utter disbelief. "When the paramedics got you out of the car they saw the phone on the seat next to you." Judy stopped to calm herself down. "Why would you ever do something so irresponsible, Quinn?" The mother's watery eyes were looking right back at her.

Suddenly her mind was being flooded with information, every bit of it about her. "Rachel." Quinn somehow managed to say out of nowhere as far as her mother was concerned.

"What about Rachel?" The older blonde questioned immediately after the name left her daughter's mouth.

Quinn thought back to what must've been just before the crash. "I was on my way to the wedding and she texted me asking where I was-"

"And you texted her back." Judy finished the sentence for her daughter whose mind was somewhere else by this point. "What was so important that you just had to text her ba-"

Quinn cut her mother off, not fully hearing her over the thoughts racing though her head. "I had to stop the wedding." Quinn snaps back to the present as her mother looks at her bewildered.

"You mean to tell me that you risked your life over a wedding?" Judy's anger showed in the question and Quinn averted her eyes immediately. "Is this that Rachel girl you kept mentioning to me last week?"

Quinn tilted her head slightly in agreement. "Yeah."

"Look, I think getting married at their age is not a very wise idea either, but was trying to stop their wedding really worth risking your life?" Quinn could see behind the anger in her mother's voice and eyes and saw how the idea of losing her youngest daughter terrified her.

Quinn's jaw clenched, she knew her mother was right, she knew that the wedding wasn't really a life or death thing, but there was more to it than her mom thought, more than just a friend whom Quinn was trying to protect from possibly ruining her life or at the least hindering it greatly. There was always more to the story than that which is told. Always. "I guess not." She finally replied to her mother, knowing that she just want her to know that what she did was irresponsible and downright stupid and her anger just showed how much their relationship had grown over the past year since she'd moved back in. "I just want you to know that before this I'd never done it before and I promise, I absolutely promise I will never ever do it again. This was just a stupid mistake that could've been prevented had I been thinking clearly." Quinn tried to comfort her mother with a half smiled, causing a dimple to appear on her left cheek.

"This Rachel girl," Judy looked back up into her daughter's eyes "She means a lot to you?" She questioned, realizing that with the exception of Brittany and Santana, who still frightened her a bit, Quinn had never had any friends over to the house and never really spoke of any either, but this girl, Rachel, she was different. When Quinn spoke of her for the past few weeks, it was with so much admiration that Judy couldn't help but remember every detail Quinn spoke of about her.

Quinn's smile grew into a full grin that made the tears that were on Judy's face nearly disappear. "She's a great friend." She replied simply, not knowing what else to say or even how. Rachel did mean so much to her, she understood how she ticked on the inside and really listened to her, even when she was being a bit psychotic and outrageous. No one, not even her own parents knew her like that. "She just gets me. You know?"

Judy understood immediately. She and her sister were only separated by just under two years, so she'd grown up always having a companion and someone to understand her and confide in. Of course with time they slowly grew apart, but they still see each other a few times each year at family gatherings and talk on the phone or email several times each month, but Quinn never had that. She and her older sister didn't do anything together. Frannie, her sister was about six years older and so much like her father that she and Quinn never had sisterly experiences, there was always too much between them. "Yeah, I know." Judy rubbed her daughter's hand comfortingly again, still needing that touch for the confirmation that it brought knowing that her daughter was still alive.

"Are you up for some visitors today?" She patted her daughter's hand before picking up the empty bowl from her slide out tray and cleaning up from their lunch. Quinn nodded her head slightly. "Good, because I don't think we'll be able to keep one of them out of here for much longer and I can phone Santana and Brittany and tell them that you're awake if you want to see them." Judy added, putting the bowl back on the cafeteria tray in an attempt to keep the room relatively tidy.

"Sounds good." Quinn started, in reply to seeing Brittany and Santana. "Who was the other person who was here? The one who keeps trying to see me?"

"I only saw her once when I got to the hospital right after the accident. She was standing at the main desk and kept saying 'I need to see Quinn. Quinn Fabray'," Judy's voice rose slightly to imitate the voice of the girl. "But I never heard her name because I was in such a hurry to get to you before the surgery on your knee." She stated, looking back on that moment when all she could really remember was getting a phone call about there being an accident, getting in her car, driving here and running to see her daughter. "She's short. Brown hair. Quite loud." She listed off a few of her traits before Quinn stopped her.

"That's Rachel." All she really had to hear was 'short' and 'loud' and there was no doubt in her mind on who was so keen on seeing her.

"That would explain the white dress." Judy quickly realized.

Quinn's right eyebrow quirked at the added fact. "She was still in her wedding dress?" She asked immediately, not fully believing what her mother had just said.

"Well she was already here when I arrived, so she must've come straight from wherever the wedding was." Judy shrugged her answer off confidently.

"How long after the accident did you get here?" Quinn asked right away, starting to do some math in her head.

Judy thought back to that evening eight days prior. "The other driver called 9-1-1 right away and you'd only been at the hospital for about fifteen minutes when I got here." She paused for a second. "So if you add in the five or ten minute drive to the hospital, I'd say it was about thirty minutes."

The slightest smile on Quinn's face grew until she had a full on grin. She couldn't believe it; maybe everything wasn't going to be as bad as she'd been thinking since she woke up the night before.

"What?" Judy questioned, taking in the relaxed, but so very happy smile on her daughter's face.

The younger blonde was pulled from the trance she'd just begun to enter and looked at her mom. "Nothing." She said, trying to hide the smile on her face.

Her mother looked at her, slightly puzzled, but didn't push it further. "Alright, well I'll go get your hairbrush and a cloth and freshen you up a bit and then Rachel, who I'm sure is already here again can come in and see you. Okay?"

"Yup." Quinn gave her mother a thumbs up before she left to the small washroom in the corner of the room.

**AN: I was going to write more for this chapter, but I couldn't guarantee that I'd have another update for a few days, so I decided to just leave it here and I'm sure most of you can guess who will be introduced next chapter. If not; her name starts with an R and she usually puts a star next to it because it's a metaphor for what she is and always will be.**

**Oh and to reply to most of the reviews I received hinting at some sort of memory loss; I don't think I'll be going into that too much beyond what I put in the first chapter because I don't think I can write that kind of angst, but since I know that many readers, myself included, crave angst, there will be some of that in this story.**

**Thanks for reading, favouriting, alerting and reviewing and I will try my best to get another chapter up in the next week. Thanks a million, Abi.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

**AN: This chapter is quite a bit shorter than I was planning, or rather, hoping to make it, but I will try to get another chapter up by this weekend, so, yeah. It's just that I've quite literally been sick since December with things ranging from laryngitis to mono and possibly even tonsillitis and right now I am so incredibly sick that I am essentially spending my entire days in bed and sneezing constantly and not like the cute little _"achoo" _sneezes, but the full on, throw your back out and dislocate your shoulder ones. However, I made a vow to try and write this on a fairly consistent basis and that is what I am trying to do for all you amazing people who have been oh so gracious as to not only read, but follow, favourite and review this thing I'm trying my best to write. So here's to you and thankfully it is impossible to transmit germs through the interwebs. **Also, no beta as of right now, so please blame any and all mistake on either me or the virus inside of me that is taking over my body. **Enjoy! **

Not even a minute past 1 o'clock when the hospital visiting hours began, the tiny brunette strode into Quinn's hospital room with purpose before she took in the sight of the blonde and halted immediately a few feet away. She'd never seen her look so vulnerable; her hair in a messy ponytail, leg elevated under the visibly itchy hospital blanket, neck in a brace and the top half of a white and blue hospital gown showing.

"What's wrong?" Quinn asked, noticing the scared and upset look on her friend's face. She just shook her head side to side in reply and slowly crept towards the chair set up to the blonde's left. "Rach-" She began, noting how silent the smaller girl was being.

"I am so, _so_ sorry." Her quiet raspy voice startled Quinn.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Rachel." Quinn pleaded through both words and the look in her hazel-green eyes. "You didn't do anything wrong." Her eyes left Rachel for a moment to silently communicate with her mother in the corner of the room who took the hint and quickly excused herself.

Rachel's gaze lifted from the floor, which she'd been looking at since Judy had began gathering her things to be excused. Her eyes were red, nose running and tears were beginning to stream down her cheeks. "It's all my fault." She managed to get out before she inhaled deeply in an attempt to calm herself down.

"No," Quinn's left hand reached out to Rachel's and she slowly guided her down into the chair. "No it's not." She said soothingly, her hand gently massaging the brunette's.

Rachel wiped her eyes with the sleeve slightly covering her free hand and clenched her jaw ever so slightly. "I was texting you. You were driving. Then you were in an accident." She trailed off, a new batch of tears quickly beginning their descent. "This," Her free hand that had given up on her tears pointed around to Quinn's injured body. "Is all because of me." The words came out through sobs and Quinn wanted nothing more than to wrap her up in a hug to try and comfort her, but she couldn't. She physically couldn't.

"Rachel." The blonde tried to gain the attention of the sobbing girl in front of her. "Rachel." She tried again. "Please look at me." The brunette's head lifted slowly from its bowed position and her eyes met Quinn's for a second time and the injured girl moved her fingers around so that they were laced with Rachel's. "The accident was my fault. I didn't have to answer my phone, but I did. It was a stupid decision, but it was my decision and therefore it was my fault and only mine." She gave a gently squeeze between their hands. "Not yours, not the other driver's," She paused for a moment, trying to think of a way to ease the tension in the room, when suddenly she thought back to something a flight attendant had said over the intercom after a bumpy landing in Florida when she was six and on her way to Disney World for the first time. "It wasn't even the asphalt's." The words were punctuated by a cheeky smile that caused a small breath to be released by the brunette through her tears.

Rachel was trying not to smile so badly, but she just couldn't. "Now is not the time for jokes, Quinn." She nearly laughed out and the blonde was almost sure she heard a small stomp come from one of the smaller girl's feet. Her tears stopped almost immediately and they did nothing more than just look at each other for a few moments.

Quinn was the first to break the silence. "When did you get here?" She asked, already partially knowing the answer.

The small smile that had crept onto Rachel's face slowly slid away and she gently turned over their intertwined hands and looked down at the blonde's exposed palm. "I got here today about a half an hour ago because I wanted to be the first one to see you if you'd finally woken up, which thankfully you had, but last week…" The smaller girl trailed off for a moment, thinking back to what she'd expected to be the happiest day of her life, but besides the New Directions winning Regionals, it was probably the worst. "You were running late and I kept waiting and waiting, then Finn came in and said that it was now or never," Rachel's other hand joined her right as she gently rubbed Quinn's fingers and thumb. "But something just didn't feel right. Something was wrong, I just knew it, but I started walking towards the room where we were supposed to go and say our vows and then I heard an ambulance from outside and I just stopped." Her two hands wrapped around Quinn's and she looked back up to Quinn's face. "Then I ran back to the green room, got my keys and purse and drove here."

"You didn't get married?" The blonde asked, taking in all the information Rachel had just given her. She shook her head in response, never breaking eye contact with the girl who she never thought would have ever meant so much to her. "But you didn't even know if it was me in the accident. It could've been anyone." Her brow crinkled as she continued to look into Rachel chocolate brown eyes.

"I just knew." Rachel shrugged out. "Don't ask me how because I honestly don't know. I just did."

"What did Finn do?" The question was posed as soon as the blonde realized that there was in fact another half involved in the wedding.

The smaller girl just shrugged again, for once in her life, not answering every question with a longwinded answer. "What do you mean by," Quinn did her best to shrug without causing any pain.

"I mean, I haven't seen or heard from him since." Her left hand left its spot on the bed in Quinn's hand to brush some hair to the side that had just fallen down onto her face. "We haven't had Glee club all week because Mr. Schuester thought that it'd be best if everyone had a little break because of the accident and since we worked so hard for Regionals he said that we deserved some time off." Her hand returned to rest with Quinn's. "I've just gone to school where I don't have any classes with him, come here hoping that you'd wake up and then I'd go home after visiting hours were over and go to bed." A single tear trickled down her slightly pale right cheek.

Quinn slipped her hand out of Rachel's and cradled the visibly distressed girl's cheek as she wiped away the tear with her thumb. "Rach," She whispered out and pulled the brunette's attention away from her hand. "Please don't cry." He fingers gently grazed along Rachel's right eyebrow as they pushed a few locks of hair out of her face and behind her ear before it slowly descended back down to the bed and rejoined the smaller girl's cradling hands.

The brunette sniffled a few times as she repositioned their joined hands on the bed to Quinn's left. "You called me Rach." Was the only thing she said as she continued to adjust and cradle the blonde's slightly chilled left hand.

"Oh, I didn't mean to." Quinn responded quickly, startled by the sudden change in topic. "I can call you Rachel if-" The blonde trailed off as Rachel began to shake her head subtly from side to side.

"No, it's okay. I don't mind." Rachel started. "Anything's better than Berry, Man Hands, Stubbles, RuPaul and last, but certainly not least and definitely the most confusing; Treasure Trail." She chuckled out, recalling the numerous names Quinn and her fellow Cheerios had called her.

The blonde nervously half laughed as she attempted to gage Rachel's face at the recollection of those names. Once she saw the sincere smile and real giggles leaving the brunette's lips she couldn't help but just smile with her. It was obvious now to Quinn -more obvious than it had been in the past few months even after so many kind and friendly gestures- that whatever had stood between them in the past was definitely gone and the smaller girl wasn't looking back at any of it and neither was Quinn.

_You can't change your past, but you can let go and start your future. _The words the blonde had said aloud to the entire glee club merely a month before rang out in her mind and she knew them now to be one hundred percent true. However, more than that, she knew as of this moment that she would do whatever it took to make sure that Rachel had a part in her future and vice versa because even through all of the drama the school year had brought her thus far, Rachel was always there and made everything clear and simple.

**AN: I guess I'll just end it there because I've been staring at my computer screen for about an hour and only written about six words, which were corrections, so I think I'll just consider this chapter done. Thanks again for reading and please feel free to alert, favourite and/or review if you liked what you read or if you didn't or maybe you just thought it was mediocre and if you did think it was either of the last two, please do review because otherwise I won't know what I'm doing wrong and if I don't know what I'm doing wrong, I'll continue to write how I currently am and you probably won't like it very much. So really, if you think about it, you'd be helping yourself by reviewing. Okay, wow. I think it's safe to say that the author's note is longer than the actual chapter and I also need to lay off the cough medicine. I'll stop now. Cheers, Abi.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

**AN: I somewhat promised another chapter two weekends ago and I thought this would be up by then, but I honestly don't know what happened. All I know is that in the last two days I got a baseball to the ankle bone, hit my head off a cabinet and twisted my leg when I went to walk down some stairs, so my luck has been absolute crap, but hey, at least I'm not sick anymore and here's a slightly longer chapter than the previous ones for you amazing people to hopefully make up for the gap. As usual, any and all mistakes are my own. Enjoy!**

Not long after the serious topics of conversation faded and the girls began talking about what Quinn had missed at school and what, if anything, the rest of the glee club had been up to for the past week, nurse Jamie entered the room for Quinn's hourly check up.

"Hey girls," Quinn and Rachel acknowledged the young nurse with small smiles as she jotted down a few notes from the machines still attached to Quinn. "How are you feeling today, miss Fabray?"

"Pretty good, all things considered. Just a bit of stinging in my leg. Other than that, nothing really." The blonde replied as the nurse put down her charts and pen in a compartment on the side of Quinn's bed and stood opposite Rachel.

"Mind if I take a look?" She asked, already beginning to peel back the blanket covering Quinn's right leg. The younger girl shook her head as Rachel's eyes looked down to where the nurse was exposing the bruised and bandaged leg. Both girls winced, neither having seen the extent of the injury. "Don't worry, it looks worse than it actually is and the stinging is typical after having a surgery like yours." Jamie's hand moved down to the base of Quinn's sock clad foot. "Can you bend your ankle to push your foot against my hand?" Her foot managed to move an inch forward before the pain forced her to return it to its former position. "That was good. Really good, actually." The smiles on both Rachel and Jamie's faces almost made Quinn forget about the pain. Almost. The look on her face didn't go unnoticed by the nurse. "Think about it this way: the pain means that you can feel it and feeling it means that your nerves are still doing their job, which means that with some hard work in physiotherapy, you'll be back to cheering and dancing in no time."

Rachel smiled appreciatively at the nurse, while Quinn looked at her confused. "How did you know that I cheer and dance?"

"I told you that Rachel was here everyday, right?" She began as Quinn nodded her confirmation. "Well she sure likes to talk." She said good-naturedly with a cheeky smile on her face, just before Rachel huffed indignantly. "I'll let you two get back to whatever you were doing before and I'll be back just after nine when my next shift starts." She grabbed her charts and made her way over to the door. "Have a good day, girls." The nurse chirped from the doorway before opening the door and slipping out into the bustling hallway.

The room was silent for a moment or two as the girls fidgeted with their hands and occasionally looked up at one another, only to catch the other's eye and look away as quickly as possible. _Why does this always happen? _Quinn thought to herself, before taking the leap of faith for both of them. "So…" One word was all she got out before she realized that she hadn't thought of a topic to talk about.

"Yeah…" Rachel's one worded rebuttal seemed to trigger something in the blonde's mind as the simplest topic became apparent.

"What do you have planned for the rest of the day?" She used to make fun of the thirteen year old boys at Christian summer camp who used to say stupid and unoriginal things like this, but now, now that she _was_ that pubescent boy, her sympathy kicked in and she felt his pain.

Rachel was pensive for a second. "Uh, well…" She began, her voice nervous and timid. "If you want I can stay here with you for the last hour or so of visiting hours."

"I'd like that. The smile that punctuated Quinn's reply seemed to calm the brunette's nerves as her shoulder's relaxed back down and she exhaled a breath neither had noticed she'd been keeping. "But I should let you know that Santana and Brittany will probably be here in the next little while." Rachel nodded non-chalantly. "Just, you know, fair warning." The blonde added, not understanding why Rachel would willingly put herself in a fourteen by twelve room with the usually crude Latina.

"I will have you know that Santana and I have come to a recent truce and I might even consider her a friend." Quinn's look could only be described as disbelief as her eyebrows rose to new heights. "Don't give me that look, Quinn."

"What look?"

"That one you always do. Your eyebrows," The smaller girl's eyes widened comically as she tried to lift her eyebrows to mimic the blonde, but eventually gave up and just used her fingers to push them up like Quinn just had.

Quinn exhaled out a chuckle as she shook her head slightly. "I just can't believe you referred to Santana as your friend." Now it was the brunette's eyebrows' turn for attention as they knitted together in confusion. "It's nothing against you, Rach. It's just…" Quinn stopped herself, trying to think of the best way to explain Santana without insulting her. "I've known her since my first year at McKinley and I can honestly say that there's only one person that she'd consider her friend and that's Brittany."

"What about you?" Rachel spoke up.

"How do I put this…" Her voice trailed off for a moment as she thought of an explanation. "She's like my sister. We're so much alike in how we think and what we do, that we've never really _been_ friends." A perplexed look grew on Rachel's face. "Okay, you don't have any siblings and I have an older sister, but she's a lot older than me so we have a completely different kind of relationship, but just imagine having a sibling that's roughly the same age as you, okay?" The blonde began as Rachel nodded her head and started doing as the other girl had asked. "Usually there are two types of relationships; the one where you have so many things in common and you enjoy spending every moment together or the other type, the one where you may not spend too much time together, but you will always love one another and have each other's back." Quinn stopped for a moment to gage the look on the brunette's face and make sure that she understood what she was trying to say. "Santana and I are the second one. When she's going through a rough patch, like when she was outed by Finn -which I really hope you talked to him about that because that was so many levels of wrong- I tried to be there for her because nobody wants to see their sibling suffer like that or if I'm going through a rough time like at the end of last year after the prom stuff and everything, she was there for me and she tried her best to comfort me."

Rachel nodded several times, her understanding evident. "I get it." Her mind went directly to the boy she'd known long before glee club even started, but who was always afraid to let anyone know that they were actually friends. "Puck and I are the same way. He's even said numerous times that he thought of himself as my big brother because we've gone to synagogue together nearly every Saturday for around ten years."

"Exactly, so you get it." Quinn began. "Another thing was that Santana and I were, and still sometimes are, always competing. Cheerios, boys, popularity - no matter what there was always something between us and we were basically forced to hate each other most of the time. I guess for you and Puck that would be the fact that he was -as he always says- a stud, while you were basically tortured and ridiculed at school for years," She paused for a second, her voice turning low and regretful. "Mainly because of me."

The added afterthought truly showed the regret Quinn felt and Rachel finally understood why Quinn was always so timid around her since they'd called truce - she was afraid of hurting her again. "I really do forgive you for that, Quinn." The brunette started. "You actually helped me, believe it or not." The blonde's head lifted up slightly to avert her eyes from where they were looking down at her lap up to Rachel. "Those years of slushies and name calling made me stronger and in a way it actually trained me for what I'm sure will be future years of paparazzi constantly following and harassing me."

The comforting smile on Rachel's face did nothing for the blonde. "Nobody _deserves_ to go through what you did in high school, though." The brunette had never seen this look in Quinn's eyes, so apologetic and full of regret.

"You're one to talk." Rachel rebutted immediately. "You got pregnant, kicked off the cheerleading squad, kicked out of your home, ridiculed by your peers, your parents divorced, you had a baby, you gave the baby up for adoption, tried to make all of the stress inside you disappear by cutting off a bunch of your hair and going into a rebel phase and then Beth and my mom came back and it so obviously hurt and tortured you, but no one really reached out." The smaller girl inhaled deeply after the long list. "And now that things have finally started to turn around; you got into Yale, we're going to regionals and you're back on the Cheerios - you get hit by a truck." Rachel shook her head at how ludicrous it all sounded because all of this had happened to one girl between the ages of fifteen and eighteen. "Your life's been no piece of cake either."

The room was silent again, as both girls took a moment to reflect on their lives since they'd first encountered one another back in freshman year. It's amazing to think that of those three and a half years, so many of their memories include one another. Not just glee club competitions and tug of war using Finn, but moments of insecurity and comfort, talks of the present and future… Their lives had been roller coasters for much of it, from the constant ups and downs of relationships to twists and turns of high school - the only thing that ever seemed to truly progress at a relatively constant rate was their friendship. They went from loathing, to camaraderie, to confiding, to where they were now; Rachel at Quinn's bedside because she honestly can't imagine being anywhere else.

"Alright, enough of this deep emotional stuff." Rachel breaks Quinn from her thoughts. "I think the only way that you will recover as quickly as possible is if you think and do something positive." Her smile infects Quinn as soon as it hits the tan girl's face. "Let's do something fun - within the confines of your bed, of course." The brunette begins, Quinn still dazzled by the smile she is sporting. "I brought some cards we can play with, we could watch TV, listen to music, I brought a book I can read to you, it's a new Barbra Streisand biography, so I don't know if you-"

Rachel's long-winded list/rant is cut short by Quinn's hand reaching out to gently grasp hers. "Cards sound good, Rach." She says simply as the brunette looks down at their point of contact. "And maybe we could talk some more. No deep emotional stuff, I promise." The bed-ridden girl gives Rachel her signature half-smile as she the brunette nods a few times before reaching down with her free hand to gather the box of cards from her purse by her feet. "We'll have to play either crazy eights or go fish because I honestly don't know how to play anything else." Quinn adds through a chuckle as Rachel pulls the cards from their packaging and begins shuffling them before nodding her head in understanding.

Their game of crazy eights goes on for a few minutes before the conversation picks up an easy topic at the hands or rather mouth of Rachel. "Sue stopped by the hospital a few times this week to see you." The words come out casually as Quinn looks up from her set of cards to look at Rachel's bowed head and furrowed brow, trying to determine which card would best be laid next. "She was only here for a few minutes each time; she'd just walk up to the main desk, ask them something -probably if you were awake or not- and then she'd leave. I don't think she even saw me right behind her sitting in the waiting area each time." She pulls an eight of clubs out of her right hand and lays it down. "Hearts." She says, indicating what the new card suit will be. "She really cares about you, you know? I don't think she'd ever admit it, but you're probably the only person -at least of the students at McKinley- that she's ever really liked. Everyone else she either makes fun of constantly or tolerates because she knows that her words don't really faze us anymore." Rachel finally notices the silence of the other girl as she looks up to gauge her reaction to everything she'd just said. "You okay?" The question leaves her mouth, as she notices the distanced look in her eyes. "Earth to Quinn." She sing-songs as the blonde continues to look past her at nothing in the distance. "Penny for your thoughts?" Her hand waves back and forth as yet another attempt to get the other girl's attention. "Maybe a nickel?"

"Huh?" Her eyes snap back to the present and the amused look on Rachel's face. "What were you saying?"

"What were you thinking about?" She knew there was something going on in that head of Quinn's, she just didn't know what.

The Quinn smile is back again. "You're pretty perceptive, you know that?"

The Queen of spades is placed on the top of the pile, causing a mischievous smile to pull at the smaller girl's lips after Quinn begins to pick up five cards from the deck. "What do you mean?"

She can't believe that she once was good at this game because she currently has sixteen cards in her hand. "I _mean_, you're kind of spot on." She slides the cards together in a uniform pile and places them face down on the pull out tray in front of her, forgotten for the time being. "When you saw me in my Cheerios uniform and I told you I'd be at the wedding, I'd just left her office and I can honestly say I'd never seen her so kind for such a long time." Rachel follows her actions and holds her cards in a pile on her lap. "She obviously let me back on the Cheerios," Quinn averts her eyes from Rachel down to her damaged leg. "Which I probably won't actually be able to be on because of the accident, but she kept talking to me about how she'd always kind of reminded me of her in several ways and she'd thought that was why she's never actually insulted me…" Her voice trails off.

"She likes you because you've stood up to her ever since you joined the glee club." Rachel states in an attempt to finish off the blonde's thought. "You and Kurt both and it shows in how she acts around you. She's no longer Sue, the master lord of all that is rude and cruel. She's just Sue, really."

"Yeah." Quinn moves her head up and down slightly. "Exactly."

At that moment Judy returns to the room to inform the girls that Santana was on her way and that Brittany couldn't make it because she was off at a motocross tournament. Their game of cards ended immediately, Quinn being the one to wave her white flag, seeing as Rachel only had a few cards left and because the blonde was beginning to slide down from her semi-upright position in the bed and it was slowly becoming less and less comfortable.

**AN: Leaving it off here and in the next chapter will be Santana, some news about Quinn's recovery/release time and possibly Sue, then things will start to pick up in both speed and story, since I'm sure at least one of you who is following this story is starting to think that at this pace it'll be chapter forty before it's the next week in the story. Alrighty, so that's it. Thanks for reading.**


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